Patty Jenkins calls Wonder Woman 1984's HBO Max launch "heartbreaking"
The film's hybrid launch, which saw it bring in well under its $200 million budget at the box office, was "the best of a bunch of very bad choices."
Patty Jenkins has spoken out today about the release of her superhero sequel Wonder Woman 1984, calling the film’s hybrid rollout—which placed it simultaneously on both HBO Max and in theaters—“heartbreaking,” and, “the best choice of a bunch of very bad choices.” Jenkins made her comments in an atmosphere that might comfortably be described as “preaching to the choir,” speaking at this year’s CinemaCon, the annual meeting for the owners of large, enclosed boxes that people pay to be crammed into alongside more than a hundred other people, all breathing on each other, for hours at a time. (Or “movietheaters,” as they were known in the Before Time.)
Jenkins is, of course, only the latest Hollywood director to speak out about the sanctity of the theatrical window, that mutually agreed-upon span of time between when a film hits theaters and when it arrives on home video. Said window has had a number of fairly hefty bricks thrown through it over the last few years, as continuing fears about the COVID-19 pandemic continue to make the prospect of public screenings of movies a logistical and medical nightmare. Arguments about the hybrid release of Black Widow are at the heart of Scarlett Johansson’s current legal battles with Disney, and multiple directors—including Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve, whose Dune is scheduled to be sacrificed to the HBO Max gods in October—have expressed their displeasure with having their Big Movies moved to the small screen.